Sending infants to Bedouin wet-nurses

It was the custom of the Arabs of the towns to seek wet-nurses for their children among the desert people, to keep them away from the diseases of the towns, to strengthen their bodies and firm their nerves, and to master the Arabic tongue in their cradle. ¹ In keeping with this custom, Abd al-Muttalib sought wet-nurses for his grandson Muhammad, and Halima of the Banu Sa'd ibn Bakr was chosen to nurse him. ^{1 2}

From Halima's account, which the book transmits from Ibn Ishaq, it is understood that the women of the desert went out at a known season to Mecca to look for nursing children. Each woman chose an infant and returned with him to the dwellings of her people. They hoped for a reward from the child's father, and so they disliked the orphan. ^{1 3 4} The child remained in the desert for two years until weaning, and the nurse might ask to keep him longer, until he grew sturdy, out of fear for him of the plagues of the town. ³

Fostering creates milk-siblings whom the scholars of biography count among a man's kin. As the book counts Abd Allah, Unaysa, and al-Shayma', the children of Halima, as brothers of the Prophet, and counts Hamza as his foster-brother in two respects. ^{1 5} The ruling of this kinship in jurisprudence is treated under foster-kinship.

The book does not examine the origin of this custom, its spread beyond Quraysh, or the wages of the nurses. These need other sources.